President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast

President Donald Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast here in Washington yesterday. In his remarks he spoke of the horrors of anti-Christian persecution:

We have seen peace-loving Muslims brutalized, victimized, murdered and oppressed by ISIS killers. We have seen threats of extermination against the Jewish people. We have seen a campaign of ISIS and genocide against Christians, where they cut off heads. Not since the Middle Ages have we seen that …. All nations have a moral obligation to speak out against such violence. All nations have a duty to work together to confront it and to confront it viciously if we have to.

This statement follows on the heels of a tweet (January 29, 2017) in which President Trump said:

Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!

The attention of the American president to the plight of Christians in the Middle East is so very welcome. We encourage President Trump to adopt a “preferential option for Christians,” in which US policy in Syria and Iraq defends the interests of the Christian minorities in these countries, and ensures that both become places where Christians and all religious minorities can live in peace as equal citizens.